This Delightful New Bourbon Is Pure New York in a Bottle
The inventive whiskey from a Manhattan distillery is aged in wine barrels that add sweetness and spice.
Manhattan-based distillery Great Jones Distilling Co. teamed up with Wölffer Estate Vineyard, hailing from Sagaponack, NY, to release the new Great Jones x Wölffer Estate Cask-Finished Bourbon.
Whiskey brands and winemakers are natural partners. After all, whiskey ages in casks, and many vineyards need barrels to mature wine. For years now, they've worked together to help lower costs and create new flavors.
But making whiskey in America's biggest city adds a special challenge. After Prohibition, Manhattan didn't house a single distillery until Great Jones came along in 2021. On the other hand, Long Island’s wine scene began to develop in the 1970s, blossoming into one of the country's top regions over the last few decades. This Great Jones and Wölffer Estate collaboration is a wholly New York whiskey.
Great Jones crafted its bourbon using ingredients grown in Warwick, NY, a short drive north of the city. After aging multiple liquids over four to seven years, the blend was finished in Wölffer Estate’s Cabernet Franc Barrique wine barrels for over a year before being cut with water from the Catskill Mountains.
Great Jones head distiller Celina Perez and Wölffer Estate winemaker Roman Roth undertook the venture as an effort to investigate "New York state terroir," in their words. “We started with a beautiful synergy of flavors between the berry notes of our Caya Cabernet Franc and the sweet notes present in the Great Jones Bourbon, and it has been a pleasure to watch how the whiskey has matured to a complex final spirit."
On the nose, Great Jones x Wölffer Estate Cask-Finished Bourbon offers notes of date pudding, vanilla, kumquat, and pepper. The palate is rich with flavors of spice and fig, leading to hints of crème brûlée and herbs. It's bottled at 44 percent ABV (88 proof) and priced at $60.
Related: The Best Bourbons of 2024 to Drink Neat or as a Highball